Distilling Rose Essential Oil and Rose Hydrolate
One of the finest and most expensive essential oils in the world is rose essential oil. The reason for its high price is the very low oil content found in roses. You need about 5000 kg of rose petals to obtain one litre of essential oil. This is, of course, also the reason why there are so many counterfeits of this oil.
The following types of roses are particularly suitable for distilling rose oil yourself or extracting it using enfleurage:
- Damask rose (Rosa damascene)
- Apothecary’s rose (Rosa gallica)
- Alba roses (Rosa alba)
- Provence Rose (Rosa centifolia)
Harvest of Roses
The optimum harvest time is particularly important for plants with low oil yield. Roses must be harvested early in the morning – preferably before sunrise – and then distilled immediately. You can also find the exact harvesting process in the video explanation to make your own essential oils.
Distillation
Roses are industrially distilled twice. The first distillation results in a low yield of essential oil. The rose water, the aqueous part after distillation, is now distilled again, the essential oil obtained from this is combined with the oil from the first distillation to obtain the famous rose oil. The rose water is the hydrolate from the second distillation.
Enfleurage
The rose petals can also be placed in neutral fat. The flowers are changed daily if possible. In this way you can obtain a pleasant rose fragrance in the fat (e.g. cream).
Rose Essential Oil – Classes and Stills
It goes without saying that making rose oil will also be discussed as part of our Making Essential Oils classes and courses.
If you would like to make rose essential oil and rose waters yourself at home with a still, then both the Essential Oil Still Leonardo Classic and the Essential Oil Still Grande are suitable for this. Since roses have a low essential oil content, the larger still with a greater filling volume is the better choice for the Rose Essential Oil, the smaller Leonardo Classic is convenient for distilling Rose Water.
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